


Patient

by likehandlingroses



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Happy Father's Day!, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin Raise Harry Potter, Young Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 02:49:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19242301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likehandlingroses/pseuds/likehandlingroses
Summary: Harry isn't sure he likes Mr. Lupin moving into the guest room of Remus and Sirius’s house. It means moving his toys, being extra quiet even during the day, and worrying that Mr. Lupin might not get better. Luckily, one of the nicest things about family is how they help each other find new ways of getting on.





	Patient

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Father's Day!

Harry looked around his room, clutching his pail of train track pieces tight about his chest. He hadn’t wanted to move them from the spare room. It had been the only room in the house with enough space to make three whole loops--except the sitting room, and if he built it there, Remus would make it put it away before bed. 

“You get to build it again tomorrow,” he’d always say, even though everyone knew that the game didn’t really start until you’d finished the track and could get on with sending the trains off. 

The spare room also had one of Harry’s favorite hide-and-go-seek spots. If Harry moved an old box in the closet just a bit to the right, he could squeeze between it and the wall, and no one could tell the difference. Remus had caught onto the spot rather quickly, and he would gently advise Harry to find somewhere new next time. Harry did--if he could find a new spot quickly enough. 

But Sirius always forgot about the spare room, so Harry never bothered with a new spot when Sirius was “It.” Sometimes, he’d hide up in there for nearly ten minutes before Sirius stuck his head in the closet, murmuring, “he couldn’t be in here, could he? No, there’s just a box, isn’t there? Oh, well, then...” 

Harry--who was feeling a bit cramped by then--would usually pop up and reveal himself, and Sirius would lament how much better Harry was at hide-and-go-seek than he’d ever been. 

Except now, they probably wouldn’t be using the spare room for games ever again. Not after Mr. Lupin moved in. 

Harry didn’t see why Mr. Lupin had to move into their house when he had a perfectly good house of his own. In fact, Harry would even be up for moving, if Mr. Lupin needed company. His house was cozy and creaky and far, far away from anyone else. You could run for ages in any direction, and all you’d ever come across were gnomes and ducks. 

But when Harry suggested moving, Sirius had insisted that being out in the middle of nowhere “would make my hair stand on end.” Meanwhile, Remus explained to Harry that they’d already sold the house to another family. 

“Anyway, it’ll be much easier just to move him here, don’t you think?” Remus said. And even though Harry didn’t think so at all, he’d pretended to agree. 

Mr. Lupin had shaky hands and kind eyes, and he did everything quite slowly. Sometimes, when he spoke to Remus, Harry couldn’t understand what either of them were saying; when he speaking with Harry, however, Mr. Lupin was careful to speak so Harry could understand. That was a good thing, because Mr. Lupin knew almost everything; he could remember places he’d gone forever and ever ago, and draw them out on a piece of paper so Harry could see them. Harry liked the dragon story the best, though Mr. Lupin always was careful to add that he’d only seen one from very, very far away. 

“But it was close enough for me, and that’s the truth,” he’d say with a wink. Harry always liked that bit. 

Even though Harry would miss having the spare room, he supposed there were worse people who could be moving in. Mr. Lupin might even let Harry set up his trains in there; he was an awfully good sport about things like that. 

The trouble was, Harry rarely got the chance to see Mr. Lupin after he’d moved in. He was always resting, always shut up in the spare room. And Harry wasn’t allowed to go in. He wasn’t even allowed to knock, which before now had always been an unspoken power that just might open any door. To be told he couldn’t even knock...it was a blow Harry wasn’t sure he could forgive. 

Even worse, now he always had to be “quiet” inside of the house. Harry--until now--had figured he knew what “quiet” meant. They’d had quiet days since before he could remember, so Remus could get some sleep before or after a full moon. Sirius was strict about quiet days. You didn’t run, you didn’t shout, and you didn’t tap forks onto different things to see what it sounded like. 

This was a new kind of quiet--a quiet that meant you could hardly do anything but whisper, tiptoe, and stare at toys that were “too noisy” to be actually picked up and played with.

“Won’t he ever stop being tired?” Harry asked Sirius over breakfast one morning. Sirius smiled. 

“It’s hard to be extra quiet, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I hate it!” Harry said, stabbing his spoon into his cereal. 

“Me too,” Sirius said. “But the thing is, Harry...it’s really important to be patient. Do you know what patient is?”

“When you wait,” Harry said, remembering the line at Gringotts that stretched on forever. 

“Sort of,” Sirius said. “It’s being fine with how things are right now, even if it’s not exactly what you want. And sometimes that means waiting. But sometimes it means learning how to do things a different way.” 

Harry didn’t see what that had to do with anything, but Sirius was staring at him like it was really important, so he only shrugged. 

“Okay.” 

“See, the thing is that Remus’s dad--Mr. Lupin--isn’t very well right now. And he’s getting better, but he’s also older than you or I or Remus, so it takes a bit longer. He might never be quite well again. Not like before. So we need to be okay with things changing, even if it’s not what we like best.” 

Harry wished Sirius wouldn’t talk about Mr. Lupin being sick--it made Harry’s stomach hurt whenever Remus tried to bring it up. 

“But I can’t _ always _ be extra quiet,” he murmured. 

“Of course not,” Sirius said. “So sometimes we’ll go off to the park or something. Or sometimes Mr. Lupin might not mind so much if it’s noisy, right? We’ll just have to see what works best.”

“Okay.” Harry pushed his bowl of cereal away, hoping that Sirius wouldn’t ask if he wanted to go to the park right away. He didn't feel at all up to it. 

Sirius looked at Harry’s bowl, then at Harry. 

“Do you want to go say hello to Mr. Lupin?”

Harry shook his head. Sirius, reaching for Harry’s bowl, stood up. 

“Well, I’m going to, if you want to join me. He was reading just a half hour ago, so he’s up.”

He took his time doing the dishes while Harry stared at his own swinging feet, trying to decide what he should do. Sirius looked at him while he was drying the last bowl, cocking his head to the side. 

“Remus and I will both be there,” he said. “It’ll be fun.” 

 

Harry got down from his chair, but wrapped one hand about one of the chair’s arms, still shuffling his feet. Sirius smiled and shook his head. 

“Come on,” he said softly, reaching out a hand. “You don’t want to be down here all by yourself.” 

Harry clung to Sirius’s arm, nearly pulling Sirius down along with it. Chuckling, Sirius lifted Harry up into his arms. 

“Are you feeling quite small today?” he asked, ruffling Harry’s hair. Harry nodded with a pout, laying his head down on Sirius’s shoulder. 

“That’s alright,” Sirius whispered. “Sometimes that’s how it is, isn’t it?” 

As it turned out, Sirius was right about the day being fun.  Mr. Lupin said he was in “good spirits,” and he was eager to tell Harry about the book he’d been reading. 

“You’d like it,” he said, beckoning Harry over so he could show him some of the pictures. “Water sprites from Greenland. Gorgeous, aren’t they?” 

Even Remus didn’t look as pale as he had the past few days, though he kept insisting Mr. Lupin stop trying to reach over to the side table himself. 

“I’ll get it, Dad, just ask me,” he kept saying, and then Mr. Lupin would murmur something Harry couldn’t understand. But nothing made Harry’s stomach hurt that morning. No one was talking about sickness or being quiet or changing anything else. After a while, Remus even suggested that Harry bring down his train set to show Mr. Lupin. 

“It’s his favorite thing,” he told Mr. Lupin. “It goes all the way around the room.”   


“And under the bed, even!” Harry said, to a very impressed Mr. Lupin. 

Harry didn’t mind when Remus insisted they put away the train set for lunch. He could always build it again. That was a part of being patient too, Harry supposed. 


End file.
